Arriving at the bank with the Colonel, Kingston spoke briefly to a uniformed PC and asked where the Securicor guards were. The officer told him they were in the bank manager’s office and the off-duty PC who’d got shot was in the ambulance parked next to the Securicor van. The back doors of the ambulance were open, and Kingston could see one of the crew attending to someone on a stretcher. He thought it strange that someone who’d got shot in the stomach wasn’t rushed to hospital. The Colonel looked around the area where the Securicor van was parked. He saw a small pool of blood near the front of the van and some droplets leading to the back of the ambulance.

‘I’d have expected more blood and guts from a close-range shotgun discharge,’ the Colonel said, and noticed something odd. ‘If that’s your shotgun victim in the ambulance he’s a lucky sod.’

‘What?’ Kingston was bemused by the Colonel’s glib remark.

‘Look there, by the blood, there are a load of rice grains on the pavement.’

Kingston realised that the shotgun cartridge must have been loaded with rice, as opposed to lead pellets. He stepped up into the ambulance and saw a young man, aged about nineteen, who was clearly still in shock and grimacing with pain while having his stomach and chest wounds cleaned with iodine. Kingston held up his warrant card and introduced himself.

‘I take it you’re the officer who got shot?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What’s your name, son?’

‘PC 642 Richard Beadle, sir. I’m a probationer attached to Edmonton Police Station.’

‘Well, you’re very lucky, Richard. From the looks of it the shotgun cartridges were loaded with rice – which is why you’re still alive. Can you tell me exactly what happened?’

‘I was going to the bank to collect some drachmas I’d ordered for a holiday in Corfu with my girlfriend. I’d just got off the bus and was crossing the road when I saw a masked man holding a sawn-off shotgun at the Securicor driver. I realised a robbery was happening and I thought he was on his own. He hadn’t seen me, so I ran up behind him and tried to get the gun off him.’ He paused to take a deep breath as the memory of the moment was making him close to tears. ‘The next thing I knew he’d knocked me to the ground and was pointing the gun at me. I closed my eyes and begged him not to shoot . . . Then there was a loud bang and I felt something thump hard into my stomach . . . The pain was unbelievable, and I thought I was going to die.’ A few tears rolled down his cheeks.

‘Did the man with the shotgun say anything?’